


Carnage Aftermath

by Huntress79



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF T'Challa (Marvel), Bucky Barnes & Shuri Friendship (background), Bucky Barnes Recovering, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Genius Shuri (Marvel), Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Black Panther (2018) Compliant, POV T'Challa (Marvel), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective T'Challa (Marvel), Steve Rogers Recovering, T'Challa (Marvel) Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 19:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20972087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huntress79/pseuds/Huntress79
Summary: When the fight is over, it falls to a king to pick up the pieces of three men.





	Carnage Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the “What If” challenge on superhero_land. Set after the final fight of Steve and Bucky vs. Tony in Siberia. We all know that T’Challa also was there. So what if he not only helped Steve und Bucky, but also Tony, in some way?  
To be honest, that one took off from under me in a way that I've never experienced before XD I initally had a plan of involving Tony more than I actually did, and I know that some lines about him border on Character Bashing, but please believe me that this is NOT my intention. Yes, everyone is hurt in one way or another in this one, and some of them say or think things that they might regret later, but the possibility of all of them reconciling is still there, just hidden very deep down.

_Siberia_

When T’Challa finally got around to look for the other men, it was getting dark outside. Wrestling the gun away from Helmut Zemo was easy in comparison to wrestle him in the holding cell of the Quinjet, but at long last, the jet was on its way back to Berlin, remotely flown by Okoye all the way from Wakanda. He also had contacted Ross, told he was about to get a special delivery.

Besides, the whole base here was nothing short of a maze. T’Challa has lost count how many times he already had to turn around because he ran into yet another dead end. Good thing that the palaces and other buildings in Wakanda were easier to find your way through.

At long last, he found the men, or better what was left of them. Taking a look around the small room next to the rocket launching tunnel, T’Challa couldn’t find any other word in his brain than “carnage” or “massacre”. If he didn’t know better, his first guess would have been that the men were attacked by a bear or any other beast of prey.

To his left, Stark was laying between two of the curved pillars, the metal suit in shreds, and the arc reactor in his chest actually emitting sparks. Definitely some kind of malfunction, but that would be Shuri’s job, once they were back home. Cause there was no way that T’Challa would leave any of them behind, here in the merciless cold of Northern Siberia.

To his right, he encountered what he would label later as a “bloodbath”. Both Barnes and Rogers were, more or less, glued to the wall, as far away from Stark as physically possible. Barnes was hunched over Rogers’ prone form, whispering to the other man. But as soon as his brain registered T’Challa’s proximity, he turned, and for a very long moment, the new King of Wakanda was reminded more of a feral cat than anything else. Short of hissing at him, Barnes let out a howl-like sound before dropping down next to Rogers and crossing his hands behind his head – the universal sign of surrender.

“I’m… I’m not here to arrest you, Sergeant.” T’Challa tried to infuse as much authority as possible in the short sentence, but Barnes didn’t move from his pose. In fact, the only thing that moved at all right now were his eyes, roaming all over the place before alternately settling on either T’Challa’s hands or Stark’s prone form. And in that moment, T’Challa knew that the former HYDRA assassin was downright afraid of both of them.

He couldn’t do anything about Stark at the moment, but what he could was to position himself so that Barnes would have to strain his neck to even see a glimpse of the billionaire. Second, T’Challa removed his gloves, setting them down on the floor right in front of Barnes. Ever so slowly, the hitched breathing of the other man began to settle in a somewhat steadier rhythm, and T’Challa finally could focus on the third man in the room, Steve Rogers.

And… Oh. My. God.

When he first came into the room, T’Challa immediately noticed the pungent scent of blood in the air. Now, he knew the source, and God, he so didn’t want to know that.

Cause the source was none else than Steve Rogers, like his old friend Barnes now missing his left arm. What was left of it was lying on a small mound of ice (probably cobbled together by Barnes), and somehow, the former assassin also had managed to put a tourniquet on the stump. Which spoke more of Barnes’ true nature than anything else. A truly mindless killer wouldn’t care about another human being as much as he did, and T’Challa also finally realized that Barnes’ earlier behavior, up and including his apparent surrender, was nothing else than making sure that Rogers got the best care.

“Don’t… don’t even think about helping them!”

Stark’s voice was shaking, still he managed to infuse it with a threatening undercurrent. Under different circumstances, T’Challa would have immediately jumped into a fighting stance, but right now, he so didn’t want to give a damn if it pleased the billionaire or not. Stalking over to the man in question, T’Challa crouched down and brought himself on eyelevel with the inventor.

“Listen, Stark, and listen well. I know that you’re hurting because of what you have learned about the true nature of your parents’ death, and Barnes’ involvement in all that.” The other man looked as if he was about to protest, so T’Challa quickly continued. “But in case you haven’t noticed, you have hurt the wrong man, badly, which in turn sent Barnes into a severe shock. And right now, I don’t give a damn if you like that or not, but I’m gonna get that man the best help I can think of.” He let his gaze sweep down to the still sparking arc reactor. “I could also offer you some help, but only if you promise to leave both Rogers and Barnes alone. Once you’ve recovered, you can go back to the States, but you will forget everything you will see in the meantime. My people have ways of making that happen.”

All the while, T’Challa had locked his gaze with Stark, and after what seemed to be a small eternity, the man nodded, giving the King of Wakanda his okay to proceed with his plans.

*********************

By the time they descended on Wakanda’s capital, T’Challa was ready to keel over and sleep for a year. Hauling three grown men through almost the whole base, back to the surface and into his Quinjet took more out of him than he initially had expected, not to mention the fact that he had to redo the tourniquet on Rogers’ arm, lock Stark into a separate chamber on the jet to keep from breaking his promise and go after Barnes, and he had to fix the seatbelt for the former assassin, cause the man was transfixed on his best friend’s body lying on the table-like raised platform in the middle of the main room.

Slowly, he set the jet down right outside the main entrance to the palace. Shuri was waiting for him, right next to Okoye and several other Dora Milaje members, as well as his mother, Zuri and his flock of healers. T’Challa also saw some of the other council members exiting the palace, probably to read him the riot act, or something like that. Well, that would have to wait until tomorrow, at least. Now, he had to make sure that their guests were settled in, taken care of and take care of himself first.

“Are you okay?”

Ramonda was the first to speak up once he descended down the ramp.

“Yes, mother, I am, though I’m quite tired right now.”

“What’s waiting for me in there?”

Shuri piped up, valiantly trying to temper down her bubbly nature for once.

“Three very traumatized men. Two of them are badly hurt, and the third is right now in no good mind frame at all.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Zuri threw in, as always acting as the voice of reason.

“I do, Zuri, I do. Though I don’t know how to help them in the long haul, but we at least can help them on the road to healing.”

With that, the royal family followed the medical personnel, who had taken over and brought out the men. Both Shuri and Okoye couldn’t help but gasp once they saw the extent of Rogers’ injuries, and the way that Barnes plastered himself at the man’s side, giving everyone a glare who even thought about attempting to remove him. Good thing that the Wakandian doctors knew how to treat not only physical wounds, but also those of the mind and soul.

*********************

When Steve came to, he immediately had kind of a déjà vu. The little bits his addled brain was picking up were shockingly similar to waking up at Walter Reed after the Battle of the Potomac. After surrendering to Bucky…

Bucky… Where was he? Wasn’t he with Steve? What had happened? And where the heck was he in the first place?

“Easy, Captain.”

A young female voice broke the haze around his mind, and at the same time, a delicate hand landed on his right shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Only then, Steve noticed the spikes of pain shooting through his body. What the heck? He usually didn’t feel any pain at all, not even after the beating he got from Bucky on the helicarrier. Sure, if someone was prodding an injured part too hard, he felt that, but not in such a constant stream as of right now.

The woman next to him seemed to sense his discomfort, as she was issuing orders to someone else in the room. Within some heartbeats, Steve felt something else flooding his systems, tempering down the pain level until it was just a dull ache. He couldn’t help himself and took a deep, calming breath before turning his head towards the woman.

And God, that woman was almost a child. She was looking so incredibly young that Steve wondered for a moment or two if she even was allowed to be in what seemed to be an intensive care unit at a hospital at all.

“I hate to repeat myself, but you have to calm down, Captain. Otherwise, your enhanced systems will flush out the pain medication in no time,” the young woman chided him, though she kept smiling. “I’m Shuri, T’Challa’s sister.” She gave him a minute to connect the dots in his mind. If she was here, that meant… “Yep, you’re in Wakanda. Under different circumstances, I would say ‘Welcome to Wakanda’, but we’ve got quite a situation here right now, and these words would not fit at all.”

“What...”, Steve tried to say, but all he got out was an undignified squeak. Shuri gave him an amused smile, and while she hurried over to another part of the room to probably get him something to drink or at least some ice chips, Steve tried to dial the blush he felt creeping up his neck back down again.

In no time, Shuri was back at his bed side, feeding him some ice chips, which tasted like heaven on his parched throat. He gave her a nod when he had enough, at least for the moment, and she put the little container on the night table next to his bed.

“What happened?”

“What do you remember?”

“Not much, to be honest. I know that Sam and I found Bucky in Romania, your brother showed up, we all got arrested and taken to Berlin, but after that, the memories are quite hazy.”

“As expected, after the total trauma your body experienced shortly,” Shuri began, only to be stopped by Steve.

“Trauma?” he echoed. “I know that you know about my enhancements,” she nodded, “and usually the serum takes care of any trauma I sustain in a fight.”

“Well, Captain,” a new voice cut in, and Steve saw T’Challa approaching the bed, dressed in a long black caftan with silver embroidery, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this time, your serum isn’t strong enough to take care of it on its own.”

“Why?”

“I’m still trying to put the pieces together, but when I found the three of you in that military base in Siberia, you…” T’Challa took a steadying breath, as if he was sentencing Steve to death, “you had lost your left arm. My guess is…”

“What? How?”

Steve’s mind was reeling. How in the world had he lost an entire arm? And how could he keep continuing being Captain America without all his limbs?

“I was just getting to that, Captain,” T’Challa said with a soft smile. “My guess is that during your fight, Stark’s arc reactor had severed it.”

Oh God, he never could go back to the States in that case. Cause with or without an arm, he would never, ever be able to spend even 10 seconds in the same room as Tony.

“Bucky? Where’s Bucky?”

“I’m here, pal.”

Like T’Challa’s voice only a few minutes earlier, Bucky’s came from the doorway, but Steve still had trouble to recognize it as such, cause it was so small, so timid, so utterly afraid, so completely NOT Bucky at all. Bucky Barnes was, ever since he met him on the schoolyard an eternity ago, a walking talking manifest of strength, at least to Steve. Hearing him speaking in that voice, as if his oldest friend was afraid of anything to happen should he dare to speak even a tick louder, gave Steve’s heart a very painful squeeze.

“Hey, Stevie, take it easy. You’re not doing yourself a favor if you panic right now.”

If Steve wasn’t as occupied with regaining control over his breathing as he was, he would have huffed at Bucky’s scolding. But here he was, falling back into a pattern he thought he had left behind outside the Vita-Ray machine all those years ago.

“That’s it, pal, keep up the pattern,” Bucky murmured into his right ear, just like they were back in their shabby apartment in Brooklyn and Steve just had another asthma attack.

Ever so slowly, Steve’s breathing went back to normal, and he finally could get a good look at Bucky. To say that the other man had a haunted look on his face would have been the understatement of the century, and Steve couldn’t help but think of a trapped, hurt animal for a hot moment. Factor in that Bucky still tried to figure out who he really was, and you got a bit closer to a description of his current state of mind.

“T’Challa,” Steve finally spoke up, “as soon as possible, Bucky and I will leave. I don’t want to be…”

“Stop right there, Rogers,” T’Challa ordered while coming up at Steve’s left side. “You don’t know anything about Wakanda yet, and the first thing is that both of you are safe here, and you both are welcome to stay as long as you want.” Another soft smile appeared on the new king’s face, and Steve felt the corners of his own mouth go up a fraction on their own volition. “I’ll even go further than that and see if I can get your teammates released. From what I have learned so far and what I realize now, you and your team only fought for freedom, for still being able to choose your own path. Forcing the Accords on you was probably the biggest mistake anyone ever could have made.” T’Challa locked gazes with Steve. “It’s in your deepest nature to fight any kind of oppression, and if you take away all the fancy words, the Accords are nothing else than that – a means of oppression.”

“But what about Stark? What if he finds you and your people?”

“He doesn’t have to,” Shuri quipped, which caused T’Challa to shoot her a glare. But she only shrugged it off before turning back to Steve and his raised eyebrow. “He’s already here…”

“What?” Steve all but bellowed, but somehow, both royals apparently had anticipated that kind of reaction, otherwise at least one of them would have flinched.

“How many times do I have to repeat myself, _Captain_, for you to get it finally into your thick head?” At that, Steve heard a soft snicker coming from Bucky. Well, apparently some things never changed at all. “You have to calm down, or else I order the doctors to pump you full of sedatives enough to kill a whole flock of rhinos.”

With that and a huff, the princess was out of the room, but neither T’Challa nor Bucky could keep up a straight face long enough for that. Steve saw her making a rude gesture in the direction of her brother, but she only threw Bucky a crooked smile before finally leaving the room.

Slowly, the two men calmed down again, and finally, Steve could ask another question.

“What did she mean with ‘he’s already here…’?”

“Back in Siberia, the fight also did quite a number on him, especially his arc reactor, and try as I might, I couldn’t leave him behind. But as soon as he’s deemed clear for transport, he’s on his way back to the States via Berlin. Ross is gonna help me in that matter.”

“Ross? As in Secretary Ross?”

“No, Everett Ross, CIA agent. He told me he’s somewhat related to the Secretary, but he’s definitely NOT on his beck and call. I even got the impression that he tries to get away as far as possible from the Secretary.”

*********************

_Three years later_

If anyone would have told Steve Rogers four years ago that he would enjoy the simple, rural life of Wakanda, or spending his days as he pleased and not as others wanted him to, he would have called that person crazy, at least.

But here he was, sitting on the wooden bench right outside their hut, enjoying the golden rays of the setting sun with closed eyes while listening to the children of the nearby village trying to get away from Bucky.

Sure, Steve had to lose his arm for all that, but deep down he knew that the day where he would hand over the mantle of Captain America, along with the shield, would have come anyway. Ever since he woke up in 2012, cut off from everything and everyone he knew, only to become the embodiment of the literal first front line for SHIELD, he felt out of place, out of time, in the worst sense of the word. By times, it was so bad, so lonely, this new lease of life, that some ugly thoughts from his darkest and lowest days back in the 30s and 40s reared their head again, leaving words like “suicide” swirling at the back of his mind.

He still hadn’t got a real hanging on all the new technology, but thanks to Shuri and Bucky, he made quite some progress. Bucky all but dove into exploring all the technical appliances the princess came up with, and many a day, he could find him bent over one of her lab tables, her right next to him, and both of them trying to figure out yet another problem. And if he was honest, this was exactly what he always wanted for Bucky. Being free to be a “geek”, as Shuri told him the world would call someone with such a vast interest in all technical things these days, and being free to love whoever he pleased.

That was another thing short of a miracle. Sure, he always had feelings for Bucky, even back then when he didn’t even know what feelings really were, but he never would have acted on them, not even without any of the bad things happening to both of them. If nothing else, he wouldn’t have wanted to lose the only real friend he ever made to some stupid, one-sided feelings.

But boy, color him surprised to the hilt when one fine day, Bucky led him out the small lagoon of “their” lake, where he told him to shut up and listen and “don’t you dare and try to interrupt me, punk”. Steve only had smiled, but that smile dropped rather fast when Bucky launched into a long, heartfelt explanation of his own feelings – which was something that not even the repeated brainwashing could erase from him.

Before Steve even could comprehend everything his longtime friend just had told him, Bucky got up, knelt down between Steve’s legs, grabbed his face, and just kissed him. And Steve just melted in the kiss, hoping to convey his own feelings that way. He sure as hell wouldn’t have found the right words for that.

One of their goats came up to him, “complaining” to him about something in their high-pitched tones, and even across the distance, Steve could hear Bucky asking the goat “what’s the haggle, doll?”, much to the delight of the children. Bucky always was good with kids, making sure they had a good time while simultaneously keeping them as safe as possible – another thing that HYDRA couldn’t take away from him.

The miniature motor in his arm whirred to life as he flexed his hand, and while it was a huge thing to get used to it, he also was eternally grateful for having landed on this side of the equation, so to speak. Besides helping overcoming the initial loss and then readjusting himself, body and soul, to the new limb, courtesy of Shuri’s brainwaves, they also managed to rid Bucky of his HYDRA programming. T’Challa’s specialists saved them all the technobabble, opting for clear, understandable words instead. And for the first time in a very long time, Steve didn’t feel insulted by them doing so.

He and Buck only did one single mission after they both had enough training with their new arms (Bucky got one from Shuri on his first birthday in Wakanda, and on that day, not a single person at the table was without tears in their eyes), and that was springing the rest of their old team free from the Raft, surprisingly assisted by Natasha. Once they were back in Wakanda, Steve handed the shield over to Sam, something he didn’t regret even the slightest bit. Sure, his first choice would have been Bucky, but the man deserved a break from fighting, more than anyone else.

Both Scott and Clint went back to the States, but within not even a year, they both were back in Wakanda, their families in tow. Scott for the reason that the FBI had threatened both Cassie and his ex-wife that, should they ever encounter Scott on US soil, they would never, ever see him again, no matter how hard they were looking. Now Cassie Lang was one of the youngest students of the University of Wakanda, and if Shuri was to believe, already giving her a run for her money with her smarts.

Clint on the other hand had to face a completely different tragedy that led him back to Wakanda. Short after his return to the farm, the FBI also came knocking, but apparently, there were still HYDRA sleepers around, and within a heartbeat, Clint not only lost his wife Laura, his three kids also lost their mother, and subsequently the only home they knew so far. Clint never told them any details of that event, but Cooper did, clinging to Steve the whole time. Now, Clint, his kids, Natasha and Wanda shared a farm not far from his and Bucky’s, and ever so slowly, the Clint they all had come to know and love, was reemerging from the dark cave called “grief”. And if Steve connected the dots correctly, Natasha was the one most responsible for that. He hoped that they would finally end up as the couple everyone assumed they were when they first met the spies.

He never had heard from Tony again, not since the day T’Challa sent him home with Ross. He and Bucky both had watched the departure from their small apartment within the palace, a safe distance away. Last thing that Sam had told him was that apparently Tony was now mentoring that spider-kid from Queens.

“And what’s your haggle, punk?” Bucky asked while plopping down next to Steve, jolting him from his reminiscing.

“Nothing important, just me doing some walk down memory lane.”

“That’s a dangerous path, pal. Sure you’ll find your back to here?”

“Absolutely,” Steve reassured Bucky.

“Really?” Bucky challenged back, raising an eyebrow.

“Of course, cause I have the best of reasons to stay in the present.”

“And what’s that? The farm? The goats?”

“No, silly, that only would be you. Nothing else in this world,” Steve answered before silencing any future question with a kiss.

*********************

The End

*********************


End file.
